


Caffeine, Small Talk

by LessonsFromMoths



Series: Sterek All The Time (lots of one shots) [19]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU human, Bassist Erica, Concert, Cute, Famous, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Guitarist Scott, M/M, Pop - Freeform, Singer Stiles, band au, crush confession, drummer jackson, idk what to tag this, on the road, rock - Freeform, tech crew derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 02:32:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13203888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LessonsFromMoths/pseuds/LessonsFromMoths
Summary: Stiles thinks he talks too much, and he wants Derek to shut him up.





	Caffeine, Small Talk

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd, sorry for mistakes!  
> This fic is based on the song "Talk Too Much" by Coin.  
> Enjoy!

"Did you know that the oldest recorded evidence of male circumcision began in ancient Egypt among the Semitic peoples?" 

Back when he was six years old, his father always told him he would get himself into trouble with his mouth. His mother, while agreeable, encouraged him to speak his mind, and with that, everything in it. Since then, Stiles never really stopped talking. A question about his day resulted in an hour long rant about the new glue sticks in first grade, and a comment about his new friend Scott ended in a long-winded babbling question about going over to his best friend's house. 

"Also, turtles have the weirdest penises. Have you ever seen a turtle penis? Seeing one made me never want a tortoise again. See, when I was younger I wanted a tortoise and I wanted to name it Mets but my parents didn't think I was responsible enough. Anyways, so you see every turtle has a body cavity called a cloaca and that has the anal openings." 

Really, he's twenty-seven now. When he was six, he couldn't control his word splurges. He should be able to now, right? 

"In the males, it has the penis, and females have a tract to the ovaries. To mate, the males literally follow the females around and sniff their ovary tract and stroke the sides of the female's head." 

He was talking to the hottest guy he knew. He hated that he couldn't just _shut the fuck up._

"Then they just go for it, like, real hard. And females can store the sperm inside for years before laying eggs, it's insane. They can breed anytime and anyplace." 

Oh god, why wouldn't Derek shut him up?

"It's nothing like cats, though. The males have a shafted penis so they just _latch_ onto the females and—"

"Stiles, enough," Derek said finally, and Stiles breathed a sigh of relief. He could have nervously rambled to Derek forever. 

"Your eyes look really green today," he said before slapping a hand over his mouth. "Well thanks for listening, this coffee is really great, isn't it? You keep up with those lovely political views of yours, but I, uh, I'd better start looking at next week's set," he laughed nervously before making a run for it, hiding behind the tekkie trailer. _"Why why why!?"_ He moaned, hitting his head gently on the side of the metal trailer. He hated himself: truly, he did. "Why do I have no filter?," he asked the abandoned light pole standing beside him, but even a tekkie came along and picked it up and moved it away before Stiles could even come up with a fake answer for the pole. "Jerk," Stiles muttered under his breath, glaring openly at the tekkie. He, unsurprisingly, ignored him. 

He returned to the conversation he just had with Derek, playing it over, before groaning to himself again. "I talk too much," he sighs. 

Really, he shouldn't be that embarrassed. Ever since Stiles and his band became famous five years ago, Derek had been their technical manager. He set up the stage, the lights, the sound...everything. He got their instruments ready and tuned them. All that being said, he definitely knew how talkative Stiles could get. And he never shut him up. How could Stiles not be embarrassed when he couldn't stop ranting to the guy he's been crazy in love with for the past five years?

He took his problem to the first person he he could think of: his best friend and bandmate Scott. "How do I, for lack of a better phrase, learn to shove a fucking sock in it every time I talk to Derek? I want him to like me, not associate me with ancient dudes' penises." 

Scott stared at him, stuck right in the middle of the task of tuning his guitar. "First of all, ew? Secondly, you've had a crush on him for five years, bro. If he doesn't like you now, he never will." 

"Fuck you, Scott, you're no help. I'm going to Erica," he said, referring to their bassist. 

"Wait! I'm sorry, man. Maybe he's just as hopeless as you. What if you try writing him a poem, or a song? You can usually focus yourself enough to do that." 

Stiles stopped in his annoyed tracks. "Wow, Scott, that's actually kind of a good idea." 

"I know, man, I'm just chalk-full of them." 

Stiles scoffed. "Yeah, sure. Tell no one to bother me, I'll be writing a song for next week's set." 

"Can do. Just don't forget that tonight is tech rehearsal. You know how Derek gets if you're late." 

"Yeah, yeah. See you later, Scotty." 

 

Once Stiles was holed up in his hotel room, no one around, he found himself glaring at his wireless keyboard, unable to come up with the right chords. Every tune felt wrong, and every time he tried to sing about Derek's multi-colored (mostly green) eyes or perfect jaw he couldn't find a corresponding melody. Eventually he had to give up and chuck his pencil across the room before trudging down the stairs to met up with the band in their tour bus that would take them to the venue. 

They went through the the motions of sound check, Stiles scatting his way through his softest and loudest moments for the sound designer, Isaac. Then Derek played with some lights, they moved around a little, and after about four hours it was over. Stiles found Derek sitting on the edge of the stage afterwards, looking completely beat. He took a place next to him and offered a redbull. 

"Caffeine?" He asked, and Derek nodded in response, taking it happily. He guzzled the redbull and smacking his lips. 

"What do you think about Apple finally admitting to slowing down older iPhones?" Derek asked, suddenly. 

Stiles squinted at him. "Current events? That's what you want to talk about?" 

"It's better than turtle sex," Derek replied, but Stiles could see the grin he was trying to hide behind the redbull can.

"Oh stop! You love how eccentric I am." 

"Sure," Derek said, and he swung his legs up beneath him. 

"Well if you want to talk current events, we should talk about SpaceX's rocket launch." 

"The pictures were extraordinarily breathtaking," Derek responded. 

"Yeah, those aren't the only thing," Stiles grumbles. 

"What?"

"Nothing! I...I'd better go," Stiles said. "Big day tomorrow." 

"Sure," Derek said again, looking a bit confused. "See you then."

Stiles left before his mouth could dig him a deeper hole. 

Luckily, his conversation with Derek didn't leave him in as much of a hopeless place with the new song. He even had a melody rattling around in his head as he made his way back up to his hotel room. "Hm hmm, hm hmm," he hummed to himself, "I talk too much...."

 

 

The next night, Stiles was exhausted but excited. He had told every member of the band about the slight change to their usual set, including Isaac and Derek's tech intern, Liam. Jackson, their drummer, had rolled his eyes extremely dramatically, but once Stiles had cried out "It's for _love!"_ the grumpy man had conceded. 

Derek, as per usual, had been running around like crazy before the show, making sure everything was in its rightful spot and the band members were in their places. Stiles was almost positive that he had watched Derek run up to Boyd about ten times in only an hour, making sure that security was in check. As always, Boys and his team had the place secured. 

Once Derek stopped badgering the backstage crew, he moved on to the band, asking each one of them how they were doing and making sure they didn't need anything. When he got to Stiles, Stiles just grinned. "For the sake of calming you down, did you know that the average NFL player only plays 11 minutes of game time? People all around the world think that here amazing and incredible, but they only have eleven minutes of awesomeness. You, on the other hand, have a charm that never runs put. Keep being incredible, Derek." 

Derek had sighed, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Just sing well, Stiles, and I'll be extra awesome." 

"Now that, I can do." Stiles shot finger guns at him and clocked his tongue. Derek rolled his eyes and moved away, his murderous eyebrows directed at a small tekkie who was holding a smashed light. Stiles felt a lot of pity for the poor kid: Derek's glare was one that couldn't be rivaled. 

"Ready, man?" Scott came up beside him, guitar strap secured and slung over his shoulder. 

"Hell yeah. Atlanta, here we come." They high fived, and on the cue of Lydia, their stage manager, ran out onstage. The crowd went wild. 

"Hello, Atlanta!!!" Stiles yelled into the microphone. "Scream if you're ready for a good time!" The crowd, a good mix of genders and ages, screamed for him. "Now scream if you're high as fuck!" Stiles put his hands up, and he got some pretty loud screams. "That's great! Just remember, don't drive under the influence! Now who's ready for some musiiiiiic?" Cue more screams. Stiles looked over and nodded at Jackson. 

Jackson adjusted his drumsticks and tapped his small cymbal. "One, two, one two three," he said, mostly loud enough just for the band. They all got really into their first song, fueled by the crowd's great energy. Stiles loved huge venues with lots of people. 

After playing through their set _almost_ flawlessly (Scott accidentally kicked his shoe off into the crowd, Jackson's first set of drumsticks cracked and hit Erica in the back, and Stiles had to improvise some scatting/talking because he forgot some words to the newest song), Lydia and her crew brought out black music stands with the band emblem painted on the back. 

"Now we have one more song for you tonight. This is a little number I just wrote, and the rest of my bandmates have agreed to play it with me for the FIRST TIME EVER!" The crowd started shrieking. He looked off to his left, where Derek was standing in the wing, all color drained from his face. Stiles smiled and gave him a thumbs up, then turned back to the crowd. "My technical manager had no clue about this, so we should probably get this started before he has an aneurism." Stiles grinned widely at the crowd. "I do apologize for the music stands, but I only wrote the song last night." 

That got the crowd going again, and once the stage crew member got Stiles's keyboard set up in front of him on the right setting, he turned sideways towards his band. "One, two, one two three four!" The music started up, a little rough, but the chords were pretty straightforward and Scott was an exceptional player. Stiles just pounded some electric keys to lead everyone. 

"Caffeine, small talk,  
Wait out the plastic weather  
Mmhmm, uh uh, discussing current events.  
I'll take my time  
I'm not the forward thinker  
You read my mind  
Better to leave it unsaid," Stiles spared a glance at Derek, not really looking at him, just towards him.  
"Why can't I leave it unsaid?" 

Stiles grinned widely, turning to his band, and Jackson started the chorus off with a drum riff. 

"You know I talk too much  
Honey, just put your lips on mine and shut me up  
We could blame it all on human nature  
Stay cool it's just a kiss  
Oh, why you gotta be so talkative?  
I talk too much, we talk to much."

The rest of the song went by in a blur, but Stiles didn't try to look at Derek again. Instead, he brought his attention to his band, all of them rocking together and actually feeling the rough draft of the music. Stiles could take note of the problems in the song, and vowed to fix them later so they could play this on their next tour. 

The song finished. "Thank you all very much, you've been a wonderful audience!!!! Goodbye, Atlanta!" Stiles screamed into the mic, high on the energy in the room, and the band filed off, Stiles leaving the stage last. 

Derek was still standing in the wing, face bright red with frustration, or anger, or—

Oh. Derek was kissing him. And damn, was it nice. Stiles threw his arms around the man and kissed him deeply.god, he had wanted this for so long. Derek pulled back suddenly, a small grin on his face. "Huh, you were right. That really did shut you up." 

"Asshole," Stiles mumbled, pressing their lips together again. 

 

And not six months later, when the song was on the radio, they would be too busy making out to actually listen to it. For some reason, Stiles was totally okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave some love if you enjoyed!


End file.
